From DE 203 12 747 U1 a stand head for the vertical mounting of an analog or digital miniature camera is known. This stand head is provided with a device with which the camera, with the nodal point of its lens system, can be adjusted on the rotation axis of the stand head.
Therein the nodal point of a lens is understood to be the point lying on the optical axis of the lens at which the incident light beams cross before they reach the image sensor or, as the case may be, the film.
In this known device a vertical oriented, that is, parallel to the rotation axis of the stand, camera receptacle plate is provided as carrier plate, which exhibits multiple horizontal slits located above each other. Selectively, a threaded bolt or, as the case may be, a securing screw, can selectively be extended through the slits and be screwed into the threaded mounting bore of a camera, in order to secure the camera in vertical position on this carrier plate in various elevations and, with regard to the rotation axis of the lens, in various horizontal positions. Therein this carrier plate is secured on a horizontal profile rail, which is mounted diametric to the rotation axis of the stand, horizontally adjustable in the rotation plate of the stand.
With the aid of this device it is possible to position the nodal point of the camera lens on the rotation axis of the rotation plate or, as the case may be, the stand. This is possible however only in the vertical position of the camera, that is, in a position, in which the camera mounting screws are located on a vertical side surface of the camera. This means that, with normal cameras, in which the mounting thread is as a rule located in the bottom surface of the camera, with vertical orientation of the rotation axis, only profile format images (height greater than width) can be recorded. Besides this, it is difficult to adjust the camera precisely to the nodal point of its lens with the aid of a securing screw guided in one of multiple horizontal slits on the carrier plate.
In order to make possible an adjustment range in the direction of running of the sleds of the carrier plate that would be greater than merely corresponding to the length of the sleds, the carrier plate itself is adjustable on the profile rail in the horizontal direction transverse to the longitudinal direction of the profile rail. For this, multiple securing screws are provided, which are screwed through bore holes of the carrier plate in a horizontal arm of the profile rail. With this known device it is not possible to selectively make profile vs. landscape format (height less than width) panorama images.